


we got it, you've got it

by saltstreets



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Humor, M/M, Pre-Slash, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 03:50:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13673679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/pseuds/saltstreets
Summary: Michael would rather have died than admitted it, but he had always been quietly proud of his soul mark.





	we got it, you've got it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tunafish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunafish/gifts).



> A treat for Imk, who wrote “the worst soulmates fic ever????” in her letter and set off a series of disastrous events inside my head which have produced, against all odds, this. Xoxoxo love youu
> 
>  
> 
> Title is cobbled together from (Nothing But) Flowers by the Talking Heads, whose entire discography on repeat is partially to blame for my inspiration here.

 

Michael would rather have died than admitted it, but he had always been quietly proud of his soul mark.

It wasn’t an unusual feeling, of course: most people were proud of their marks. It was an easy thing _to_ be proud of. But Michael had always felt that his mark was particularly good, and reflected particularly well on himself. Above all else, it was written in English, which when it had appeared just after his thirteenth birthday had been thrilling to show and brag about to his friends. They had all been jealous of his future soul mate, who was likely to be a seductive American spy. Or maybe it would be Micha who would become a spy, and fall in love with a mysterious beauty while abroad on some mission. Even when a month after the mark appeared, the Berlin Wall came down and a glamorous career of state intelligence gathering became much less likely to appear in the cards, Michael’s English soul mark was still good for respect among his peers, who all had German scrawled across their forearms. English had an exotic, forbidden appeal even after East Germany had got messily crammed back with its western half.

The English soul mark, Michael thought self-importantly, meant that he was going to be a man of global significance. His entire country had gone and moved itself closer to the west just so that he could meet his soul mate more easily. That _had_ to mean something.

Once he’d grown a little older and (mostly) grown out of dreams of karmic grandeur, the English soul mark took on a different cast. Michael started taking an interest in English football. Espionage might have been out, but the transfer market was decidedly in. He was, Michael felt sure, _going places._

For all that, the actual words of the mark weren’t actually very interesting. And given the ubiquity of the English language, Michael supposed that it was entirely possible that his soul mate was just a tourist –there really was something that seemed very American about the way the mark was worded- and could well be met anywhere in the world. But all the same, when Chelsea came calling for him, Michael began thinking in earnest that this might be the time for him to, as the saying went, meet his match.

 

 

Of course, things didn’t precisely work out that way. But Michael was enjoying his football, or, as the case was a few years later, blindingly furious about his football and there wasn’t much time to linger long over what may or may not have been. By the time he hung up his boots for good, he’d not thought about the possibility of his English-speaking soul mate in quite some time.

When he accepted the job from ESPN, who made him an offer helpfully worded in English, he _definitely_ didn’t think about said soul mate, and thought about it even less when he was invited to a February weekend workshop in New York to meet the broadcasting team ahead of the European competition in the summer. Definitely not.

He genuinely wasn’t thinking about it when he arrived in New York, as the first day was a whirlwind of trying to navigate the city and being shuffled around the studio complex waiting for the rest of the team to arrive. And just when he had found a relatively quiet green room to sit down, a harried-looking intern dragged him back off to a large conference room for the orientation to begin proper.

Bob, the host, was a jovial man with a permanently benevolent face who greeted Michael with a handshake and a hearty clap on the shoulder.

“Wonderful to have you,” he said, ushering him to take a seat at the long table prepared with bottled waters and a tray of pleasingly arranged fruit. “Have you had a chance to see the city yet? We’re only waiting for Alexi- he just ducked out but he’ll be back in a sec and we’ll get started. You two’ll be paired up for the opener so it’ll be good to get to know each other!”

Michael nodded and offered a few stock platitudes that wouldn’t tax his English too badly. He tapped idly at his phone until movement in the corner of his eye drew his attention to the arrival of a tall, narrow man who gangled his way good-humouredly across the room.

“Hi,” he said with an ear-to-ear grin, “looks like you’re my guy.”

Michael blinked at him. Took in wide, guileless smile and the grey-blue eyes, the swoop of red hair. Replayed the words in his head, even though he’d read them where they were inked into his forearm so many times over the past three decades and wouldn’t have missed them for anything.

“Yes,” he heard himself say, “looks like I am.”

Alexi Lalas did a double take, blinked, opened his mouth as if to say something more, and at that moment Bob came back in with a stack of file folders and the prep began in earnest.

Michael didn’t get much of a chance to speak to Alexi directly but over the course of the next four hours he did learn that Alexi was vastly, deeply, interminably annoying. Annoying and generally wrong on most counts. Michael had done a little bit of research on his co-presenters before flying over, but since then Alexi seemed to have reversed several of the opinions attributed to him by the internet, introduced a few more, and thrown in a healthy handful of confusing jokes on top. Something about his _everything_ rubbed Michael wrong: the way he spun slightly in his chair and twirled a pen around his thumb while speaking.

Alexi Lalas’ entire presence was distracting. Michael did not like it.

 

 

ESPN had booked them both rooms in the Times Square Westin. Neighbouring rooms. Michael had just pulled open the curtains and dropped back against the bed to admire the lights and _not_ think about anyone cosmically significant he may or may not have met that day when there was a tap at the hotel room door.

Michael opened it slowly. Alexi stood in the hallway, the sharp light from the LED bulb of the overhead fixture gleaming off of his hair.

“Yes?” Michael asked testily. He had been doing a good job of pretending to put Alexi out of his head and now here was the man himself, to be just as difficult to ignorable in the flesh as he was in Michael’s own treacherous imagination.

Alexi tipped his head to the side as if thinking, though that was unlikely. “So,” he said, sounding slightly amused in a way that Michael found _vastly_ irritating, “are we gonna talk about this or what?”

“What? Talk about what?”

“Well, I don’t know what’s up in Germany but in the States we have these little things called soul marks which are kind of a big deal.”

The last vestige of hope that the entire thing was some awful coincidence spluttered out. Michael was sunk. He opted for deepening his frown and crossing his arms, and saying nothing.

That must have been confirmation enough in itself, because Alexi shrugged and looked, if anything, more criminally cheerful. “If that’s the way you want to play it. Guess I’ll see you in the summer, Michael.” He had the audacity to give Michael a chipper little half-wave before flashing that wide, white-toothed grin and ambling away five feet down the hall to disappear into his own room. Michael gaped after him, frustration reaching a boiling point. _I’ll see you in the summer, Michael-_ Lalas didn’t seem at _all_ put out, even thrown off balance by this absolutely untenable situation. Michael gave the empty hall one last venomous stare before shutting the door to go lie down and fume for a little while.

 

 

He had four months to fume back in Germany before flying out to Warsaw for the tournament in June.

Contrary to what Michael had been getting pre-emptively angry expecting, Alexi did not bring up their matching soul marks at the first opportunity. He had plenty of chances, but he treated Michael with the same cheerful irreverence as he did everyone else in the studio. They argued in pre-match and during half-time and in post-match, Alexi made ridiculous predictions and, incomprehensibly, stubbornly kept up his flattering remarks about England which Michael would _not_ stand for, but he didn’t bring up the subject which Michael had being winding himself up about since mid-February.

In fact it wasn’t until two weeks later, after the Germany-Greece quarter-final match, that Alexi said anything at all. And even then, it was partially Michael’s fault. Mostly Michael’s fault. Entirely Michael’s fault.

Once again ESPN had booked them to the same hotel in Warsaw, although this time a floor apart. After Germany’s cruise through the quarter-final and Alexi’s satisfactory admission of the excellent performance Michael was in a good mood, and even conceded to share a taxi back from the studio. They discussed the match and the upcoming England-Italy clash, and Alexi managed to keep his contributions inoffensive enough that Michael didn’t even notice that they had both got out of the elevator and headed to his own room until he was already closing the door behind Alexi.

It was at that point, Alexi standing innocuously in his hotel room, that Michael gave in. “Alright,” he said, mustering up his best business-like tone of voice, “what do you want to do about this?”

Alexi blinked entirely too innocently. “About what, now?”

Michael gestured vaguely to the room at large. “Us. Seeing as we _are_ soul mates, god only knows how or why.”

“Well," said Alexi with a smile that was entirely too pleased with itself, "I was sorta hoping we might go down the path most travelled. I mean, you know. We could give it a shot.”

Michael made a face.

“It might not be that bad,” Alexi wheedled.

“It would be exactly that bad.”

“Alright, but maybe that’d be kinda good.”

Michael stared at him. “How is that supposed to make any sense.”

Alexi shrugged and sat down on Michael’s bed. He caught the expression of exasperation on Michael’s face and laughed. “It’s funny how you think any of this _should_ make sense in the first place. I think you need a little romance in your soul.”

“And you’re the person to put it there?”

“Could be,” Alexi said, without even taking the massive opening that Michael had given him for the worst innuendo in the Northern Hemisphere. “The universe sure seems to think so.”

“The _universe,_ ” Michael scoffed. “You did not strike me as the zen type, Alexi.”

“I think I can convince you.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Would you really?”

Michael thought about it, and sized Alexi up where he sat on the bed, one leg crossed over the other and his long fingers tapping a rhythm into the rumpled bedclothes. Alexi smiled in what was possibly meant to be a winning fashion.

“Yeah,” said Michael finally, and was slightly surprised to find that he meant it, “I would. See if you can convince me to overlook your _many_ personality flaws and general, you.” He didn’t even say it in a mean way. Goddammit. Lalas was already winning.

“Do I have a time limit?”

“You’re going to need until the death of the universe to succeed so no, no time limit.”

Alexi’s eyebrows went up. “So you _do_ want me to succeed, then?” He laughed. “Michael, I think- I think you might already be warming up to me-”

“I didn’t say I wanted you to succeed, you idiot, I mean that it is an impossible task!”

“I thiiiiiiiink you want me to seduce you, Michael. I think you liiiiiiiike me.”

“Oh, get out of here.” Michael gave Alexi a shove. “I have put up with you all day, let me have some peace and quiet.”

“You’d better get ready to fall hard for my personality flaws.” Alexi levered himself off the bed and sauntered to the door with a grin. “I do also think you’re looking forward to it.”

Michael flapped his hand in a _shoo_ ing motion. “Good night!”

Alexi slipped out the door. Michael watched him go, and maybe, just a little bit, looked forward to it.

 


End file.
